President Bush will officially veto the farm bill today per Reuters:

Congress may initiate an override vote as early as this evening. We are nearing the end game now.

So many scandals, so little time. Late last year Felix Homogratus the infamous “Forex Bastard” of forexpeacearmy.com fame got swept up in an international sting operation conducted by the Department of Homeland Security. (See Complaint Document: http://www.pipwizard.com/pdf/marriag...-complaint.pdf )

Apparently forex bastard was dating and harboring a Russian vixen (photo here: Pair arrested in green card marriage that resulted from Web ads - Los Angeles Times) who had participated in marital fraud. This Monday Yuliya Mikhailovna Kalinina started serving a four month “home detention” sentence and will likely face deportation according to the San Jose Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9113354

It is one of the most bizarre stories I have covered to date. Ms. Kalinina put up an ad on Craig’s List stating she was willing to pay $300 a month and a total of $15,000 to marry someone to get that golden ticket to America. CNN ran a story on it at the time:
'Green Card Marriage' ad nets arrest - CNN.com

Sure enough there was some down on his luck bloke out there foolish enough to take her up on her offer. That Wally Brain would be Benjamin Adams. Kalinina's live-in boyfriend, Dmitri Chavkerov, an Internet-ordained minister, wed the two defendants.

Who is Dmitri Chavkerov? According to EuroMoney Dmitri Chavkerov is none other than Forex Bastard:
http://www.euromoneyfix.com/Article....icleID=1853868

Dmitri you magnificent bastard! Not only are you a forex bastard, but you’re an ordained minister too?! What a true Renaissance man…

Nice of you to also take Yuliya off Benjamin Adams’ hands and put her up in your swinging pad, where I assume she is now serving her four month “home detention” prison sentence? Now that’s an easy piece of prison time with built in conjugal visitation rights included!

So is this the end of the notorious forexpeacearmy? According to a thread at Elite Trader titled “Felix Sells Out” MB Trading has cut its ties to Forex Bastard and torn up their IB agreement with him: Forums - Felix Sells Out

But Forex Bastard is nothing if not resilient. Over the years he has hosted a slew of forex related websites and changed his name more often than Prince:

Forexbastard.com
Forexpeacearmy.com
Kingofforexsignal.com
Forexfreedom.com

But it will be hard for the Bastard to re-invent himself in light of this story. Google Forex Bastard and Dmitri Chavkerov and you’ll find a bucketful of blogs designed to bring down the Bastard, most notably: Attacking Forex Market which makes some hair raising allegations that imply that the Bastard is not just running his own little websites but also pulling the strings behind a whole host of actual forex dealers.

Such is the nefarious influence of Forex Bastard that he has spawned a whole series of paranoid blogs that insist he is some kind of one man Freemason Society (or Stonecutter Society if you prefer: YouTube - STONECUTTERS).

If that isn’t enough to warn you off from forexpeacearmy there is this very insightful video by a trader who demonstrates how the reviews at forexpeacearmy are bogus and not worth the pixels they are printed on: YouTube - Forex Scams - forexbastards.com

It’s a mad, mad, mad forex world we live in. Thank heavens all these guys have to get licenses in the next few months. This insanity has got to stop.

D’OH!!!

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lawmakers scrambled Thursday to fix a clerical error that derailed an effort to override President Bush's veto of a $300 billion farm bill.
Congress may have to revote on a $300 billion farm bill due to what Democrats called a clerical error.

The House of Representatives voted 316-108 Wednesday to override the president's veto, but shortly after the vote, lawmakers learned that a "not particularly controversial" section of the bill was accidentally omitted from the version that Congress sent to the White House, said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland.
The discovery prompted concerns from Hoyer's Republican counterpart that the override vote was improper.

"What's happened here raises serious constitutional questions -- very serious," said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "I don't see how we can proceed with the override as it occurred."

Hoyer suggested that the section left out of the original bill -- authorizing trade and food aid -- could be approved by both houses of Congress and sent back to Bush, "either to be signed by him or vetoed by him, and we would consider it in that context."
But late Wednesday, a Democratic leadership aide said the House likely will hold an entirely new vote on the complete farm bill, move it to the Senate for a quick vote and send it to the White House -- where Bush is likely to let it die without his signature during the Memorial Day recess.

Democrats said the matter stemmed from a clerical error. But Republicans pounced on what they called a "fiasco," which they said would require a temporary extension of the current farm bill.

The veto was overridden and the CFTC is now at work implementing the new law passed by Congress. CFTC has just issued a press release touting what the new law does:
CFTC Applauds Enactment of Agency Reauthorization Legislation
And so it begins. The following firms do not currently meet the upcoming capital requirement increase to $10 million which will take effect 120 days from today:

Advanced Markets $5,100,000
Bacera $5,500,000
Money Garden $6,600,000
Easy Forex $7,200,000
MB Trading $7,700,000
Hotspot $7,700,000
Forex Club $7,900,000
Friedberg Mercantile $8,000,000
CMC $8,300,000
Alpari $8,800,000
Ikon $8,800,000

I want to know what the new regulations are more than the new $10 mil requirement. Mostly because my funds are at a well financed broker and an ECN.

The new requirements will go up incrementally to $20million. All I can see is a lot of brokers are about to leave the USA en masse leaving a select few to fleece the customers that are left in an uncompetitive environment.

__________________
1/2 pip spread rebates and a free forex signals blog including OzFX based swing, only at RebateFX.com

One of the fastest growing markets for retail fx trading is in China. The only problem for forex dealers is that currency trading in China is illegal. The Chinese Government routinely rounds up underground forex dealers and introducing brokers but just as with the old prohibition laws the trading public seems to just ignore their communist masters and keep on drinking that moonshine.

But currency bootleggers beware: if you get caught you may wind up in a stank Chinese prison sewing sneakers together for Nike or stitching hula shirts together for Wal*Mart.

Such are the fates now of dozens of former introducing brokers for Northfinance and Forex.CH after a series of raids in mainland China.

Of course, no one should be surprised that Northfinance has once again gotten into legal trouble. They have long been an industry rogue and their recent purchase by FX Pro has done little to rein them in. But this does not bode well for Forex.CH, which is a Swiss based broker already reeling from the new banking laws in Switzerland that may put them out of business. It is going to be a lot harder for them to meet Swiss capital requirements now that their boys in China have been pinched:

Íâ¹ú¹«Ë¾Ë½¶ÒÍâ»ã ÍâÍø³´»ãÁ÷ʧ¼¸Ç§Íò-Íâ»ãƵµÀ-ºÍѶÍø
·¸×ïÍÅ»ïÀûÓÃÍøÂç·Ç·¨³´ÂôÍâ»ã30ÒÚÔª_ÐÂÎÅÖÐÐÄ_ÐÂÀËÍø

Since most people can’t read Chinese I’ll summarize below:
As I said before, China doesn’t play around. If they’re lucky these agents will be sent to a prison factory to spray lead paint on cheap Hannah Montana dolls but if they’re unlucky, well… take a read through Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and you’ll get the picture.

Now, knowing the manner that companies like GFX and Northfinance do business and knowing that they have been unregulated for many years why on earth would anyone open an account with such an outfit?

Wow business in mainland China sure be so good based off their population, just imaging 40 IB bring in 20 accounts (usd 1,000 as minimum deposit).

Having a rough day trading? Well, things could always be worse. You could have an account at one of the bankrupt forex firms described below. Perhaps the worst thing about having an account locked up in bankruptcy is the uncertainty and the legalese that gets spit in your face by court ordered receivers, (although in the case of Aleccoh FX all you get is some ass clown appearing once a month on a bulletin board hiding behind a mug shot of George Soros.)

Here is the latest correspondence from the court appointed receiver at FXLQ:

There is a lot of hedging in those three paragraphs. A lot of “if’s, should’s, unexpected’s, may’s, and hope’s” tossed in, which makes it far more likely that the customers stuck at FXLQ aren’t going to get all of their money back.

Of course his Holiness, Aleccoh FX, can’t be bothered to communicate in such a professional manner. He continues to hide behind a .jpg of George Soros and in his latest bloviation to the masses states: http://www.forex-tsd.com/212268-post1815.html
Such is life in the world of the undercapitalized. Let’s hope the new laws in the U.S. and Switzerland close the book on these all too common “bankruptcies.”

The Caveman Forex Challenge

My recent post questioning the validity of Caveman forex’s signals stirred up a chest thumping response from the Cro-Magnon community and like the cavemen from those Geico commercials they are up in arms over the stereotypes the Savior heaped upon them.

Therefore, the Savior has agreed to give the Cavemen a chance to defend their honor. I hereby am announcing “The Caveman Forex Challenge.”

Every Wednesday between 8-9pm Eastern Standard Time Caveman Forex posts a free trade off their signals:
Wednesday's Free Forex Picks

The Savior will be placing these trades on his own Hotspot demo account to test the validity of the signals and the Savior will report the outcome of the trade the following day. The Savior will do this for several months (let’s say three) and then officially give Caveman Forex either the Thumbs UP or Thumbs Down sign.

Alright you homo erecti, the whole trading community is watching you now. I’m giving you guys more publicity than you have ever had before so this is your big chance or else it’s back to caveman’s crib for you!

YouTube - Caveman's Crib